


Strip it Down

by Abyssiniana



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Sex, Blood, Car Sex, Drinking, F/M, Falling In Love, Heartbreak, Keith's dad is called James, Masturbation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Smoking, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Xenophilia, and instant regret, he's a loser and i love him so much, i am completely in love with these two
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-05-14 10:42:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14768078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abyssiniana/pseuds/Abyssiniana
Summary: «It began, like so many love stories, with a drunken stupor and a wounded alien.»--as in, the untold story of how a simple human and an intergalactic warrior fell in love.





	1. I.

The television flickered an unclear image, grainy and heavily saturated in the darkness of the room. Buzzing sounds dissipated like blood soaking through fabric, hiccupping in short intervals; it would become annoying after some time if someone cared enough.

 

In the ironic vastness of the desert shack, James Kogane sure didn’t.

 

Dark blue eyes focused in the nothingness between him and the old TV, calloused fingers feeling the weight of the revolver on his palm and caressing it as if it wasn’t a sensation already familiar to him. If he had a date with a bullet through the roof of his mouth, this was his trusted wingman. Alcohol had been a good ice breaker for the past hours – for a second there he considered finishing the bottle of scotch, to which his burnt inflamed throat advised against with a rough groan – but he grew impatient, and worse, he felt himself chickening out of this lethal hookup.

 

Pathetic.

 

The cold merciless metal rested on his tongue, the muzzle pointed directly to his brain, hand shaky and eyes shut.

 

So close and he couldn’t even bring himself to pull the trigger. Of course he fucking couldn’t.

 

That was the story of his life; not being able to go through with his decisions.

 

Growing up in the system screwed up any kid and their motivations, but he always thought himself different. James believed he could be someone back then, despite his uncertain origins. Rise from the ashes of an orphanage, start out as the kid no one knew how to love and grow to be recognized. Fuck, he wanted to be a doctor, back then. A nurse. Someone who would see past all the unfairness and bitterness of the real world and commit to help people. That dream died at the age of 16 when he realized he’d have to bring out straight A’s rather than his wobbly C’s and D’s at school. Looking back at the past 25 years, the things he had done and was, in fact, proud of, could be counted in a single hand: he graduated from high school (hardly, but done it nevertheless); stealing food regularly from the local grocery store without getting caught (until he was, which didn’t stop him from doing it again); despite his violent tendencies and the time spent at juvenile hall, he never went as far as to kill someone.

 

Close to, but never effectively.

 

Aside from that… There was nothing. A twenty-five-year-old man with the liver of a sexagenarian and the motivation of a stillborn.

 

He couldn’t keep a job. He had tried call centers, highway restaurants, washing and unclogging bogs, civil construction, assisting a mechanic. The last two were the longest contracts he kept, around three months with hardly no pay at all. Women? Yeah, he fucked around, but no commitment. They were blonde but not dumb. The three dishes he owned – read, borrowed to never return from the old lady at his old neighborhood who brought him cakes when he moved in temporarily – piled up in the sink, along with the single pan he used to fry or grill whatever food he could consume. Even if James promised he’d wash them up before using them again, he always grew lazy at the last minute and ate over the greasy splinters of days old bacon and God above knows what else. He called “home” to a shitty shack he had simply occupied and claimed to no one, upon seeing it abandoned in the middle of the Arizona desert. He didn’t bother dusting or tidying the place, as much as he didn’t bother locking the door when he came in; there was nothing of value there and people knew better than to roam out there in the arid desert days and chilling nights unless they knew where they were going, and no one would want to go where James was.

 

It was for the best.

 

Maybe if he were to drink a little more his balls would unshrink from the confines of his body. He could use a pair of steel right about now. Grabbing the cheap bottle by the neck, he drained it in a few gulps; dead men don’t drink, so there was no need to leave it lying around half-finished. The trigger looked pretty inviting and he felt courageous, once more. Thankfully.

 

God all Mighty, just shoot for him. Aim at his forehead with Your mighty finger which probably has the divine ability to shoot bullets at the whim of a thought and make this easier for a soul as wretched as James’.

 

The brunet tossed his head back as he sank further into the couch, the rusty springs fighting back the weight with little resistance, the revolver falling flat on a blanket, which worked as both a cover and a pillow, some nights. His face was wet with that could be tears, but James preferred to assume he had wasted the last drops of scotch down his face before dropping the bottle to roll across the wooden floor.

 

Taking several deep breaths, knuckles going white from the force of digging his fingernails into his sweaty palms, he made up his mind. If he didn’t go through with this tonight, it wouldn’t happen ever again. He would take this as a sign and… do something. Anything, to turn his life around.

 

He owed that to… to himself? What bullshit. Another excuse, even in the heart of his suicide attempt; what a coward, to the very end.

 

Turns out they were tears, he noted with no enthusiasm, rubbing them away with the sleeve of his red plaid shirt. James might’ve pressed his thumb a bit too hard against his eyelids, vivid dancing lights seemingly clouding his vision. They didn’t fade after a while, rather, they only shone brighter on the night sky until they became one, the window that framed the TV being swallowed by a distant light in the desert landscape. Sporting a frown, the Texan man walked – rather, staggered – towards the window, squinting as it it’d help him focus his sight on the free-falling fireball. A meteor…? What the fuck.

 

The pressure could explain the temporary illusions, but not the sound of what seemed like an incoming nuke and the materialization of the imminent crash a few miles away. As the good laws of physics dictated, it took a few seconds for the physical impact to be felt: the shock had been seismic, the ground shaking, glasses breaking, walls threatening to give in, the forgotten bottle of alcohol rolling away until it cracked against the leg of the makeshift coffee table. Even James had been pushed back to some extent, raising his forearms and elbows to protect his face from the shards of the broken windows.

 

Before he could add two and two in his muddled head, he found himself running out of the shack and stepping into his much-loved old truck and drove towards the area of impact, a large cloud of smoke raising to the night sky.

 

Driving to a potentially hazardous zone while quite clearly drunk as a skunk? What good could come of that? He had the death wish, so he would just have to team up with his incurable curiosity and have it killing him.

 

Good lord, he was so wasted.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James gets a lovely scar as a reminder of his first encounter with an alien.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: wound treating. It's not too graphic, but still, there's blood, so I thought I should mention!

The "meteor" was, in fact, a space shuttle. A Star Wars kind of thing, straight outta them movies.

 

Legit.

 

James left his pickup a safe distance away and approached with care, more than he thought he'd consider having taken in account his pissed drunken hallucinations. The impact had created a large crater, about eight times larger than the capsule in the center.

 

It didn't look like one of the Earthen models, for sure. Black and violet didn't quite fit NASA's aesthetic. Despite the sharp, elegant design, it was completely wrecked from the fall, and by the looks of it, non-operational, pieces of a material too foreign to him cracking off like peanut shells. Small fires, no more harmful than tealights, were starting around all the spread debris, but they were small enough to be put out with his boot, so he paid them no mind.

 

He leaned in on his tip toes to try and find a way to open the cabin of the ship. A voice on the back of his mind, one he wouldn't normally pay attention to, told him that he was about to witness something that'd change the rest of his lamentable life, so he hoped for an extraterrestrial virus or fumes that could end him instantly; talk about a twist. What he saw, however, was the shape of a person.

 

The alcohol seemed to evaporate instantly from his bloodstream, a flash of clarity making his eyes widen in disbelief. Someone, or a humanoid of sorts, was inside that cramped space. What the fuck.

 

Ruffling his short hair out of despair and lightly tugging at the strands as if that'd ease out his panic, James decided that he should call the police and an ambulance, or the CIA or whichever the social protocol for alien objects penetrating through the atmosphere and landing close to his backyard was, but his phone's battery was likely dead and he couldn't bother to find it in his pocket when someone - or something, God forbid - needed immediate help. James knew better than anyone that the authorities wouldn't reach this far in the Arizona desert in time to be make themselves useful.

 

That was why he had chosen to live there in the first place.

 

If these aliens were as smart as they should be, they'd have a little button just outside their little ships with an eject symbol. He tried palming at every inch of the cockpit window, even knocking at it to see if the individual would respond.

 

No luck.

 

Good old Texan way it is. Pulling his leg back, James landed a kick, and then a second, followed by punches with balled up fists. The glass didn't crack, nor break at the crash, but his knuckles did complain. A little tool he had on the back of his pickup should do the trick. He hurried back with a crowbar and even with its aid, it took more effort than he thought to penetrate through the window and levering it open.

 

The technology of a flickering pink ghost-like keyboard was too much for him to ever understand, so he focused on the figure instead. The alien wore an extremely tight spandex-suit, a black helmet that hid them from any facial recognition (not like he'd know them anyway) and other armor parts, but it didn't take much to notice the ugly looking wound on the figure's side; that'd be a pressing problem, should they even be alive. It bled red and ripped through the fabric, and that was all James needed. He waited for a few seconds, eyes narrowing in observation, and when he noticed the slight movement of the stranger's chest, he moved in with the confirmation of a breath, pulling them out of the pit and dragging them out of the broken ship.

 

The body – about as tall as James was, if not a little more – was settled on the passenger’s seat, as comfortably as he thought possible. The blood kept sprouting from the cut, staining the leather seats and slipping down to the carpets – that’d be a pain to clean up. James considered removing the helmet; that’d maybe help them breathe easier, right? Even if in the case of a car crash it was unadvisable to do it... He debated internally for a second but ended up deciding against it before hopping onto the driver’s seat and going back to his shack. His primitive mind simply wasn’t ready to deal with the appearance of an alien species, to be quite honest.

 

Were they human, a long-lost astronaut? Unlikely. Was he the first man to ever hold a motherfucking alien in his arms? First or not, should he be brutally murdered before anyone would know of this encounter, there was something he could do to at least fix the wound and get on the space invader’s good side. He knew fully well he wasn’t competent enough to deal with this kind of injury, but if he were to drive an alien to the nearest hospital, he couldn’t even begin to imagine the fuss around the whole situation

 

Fingertips tapping anxiously on the spent wheel, Kogane drove away, only hoping to have some more alcohol back home.

 

~*~

 

The dubious medical knowledge James had acquired from shows like Grey’s Anatomy and House would come in handy, as he raided his bathroom cupboard in search of anything that be used to take care of the concerning wound on the alien’s side. He glanced behind his shoulder, towards the bed, where he’d laid the stranger. Perhaps he should’ve paid more attention to those sci-fi movies for a deeper insight on how to treat alien wounds. It looked like a deep cut, so he supposed he’d have to disinfect the area and then sew the skin back together; that made sense, at least in the human dimension it did.

 

He looked for a pile of clean cloths he had lying on the bottom shelf, thinking to use them to stop the bleeding, and turned around to the realization that the bed was empty, undisturbed if not for the pool of red on the center. Upon stepping back into the bedroom, James met the flash of a blade, a quick unthought dodge making it miss his eye just barely. The dagger was stuck in the wooden doorframe behind him, and that was when James allowed himself to notice the string of blood that snaked down to his eye. His fingers rose to meet the cut on his eyebrow, flinching when it stung.

 

“Ouch,  _ fucking _ h--”, he huffed, dropping the supplies before he could react to anything else. He knew that the knife wasn’t meant to miss, and the next hit sure wouldn’t. It came in the form of a kick aimed to his head, which was countered with his forearm (hardly, the force knocking him back on his feet), and the next was a punch that hit him square in the jaw, teeth knocking together in a clash, and projected him a couple meters across the room.

 

For someone with an open wound, they sure had them moves.

 

“I don’t- I  _ won’t _ hurt you!”, James attempted, though clearly the alien had taken their own conclusions, elegantly retrieving the cold dagger and holding it by his pulsing jugular under the threat of decapitation. A pair of thunder thighs straddled his heaving chest, the weight making it between hard and impossible to breathe, as well as to move his upper limbs. He searched sanguinely in the darkness of the visor for an equal pair of eyes; he should’ve removed that stupid headgear, even if just to have something to stare at as he died rather than his own pathetic distorted reflection. “I’m not going to hurt you.”, he repeated in a slow, calmer pace, hands raising as his debilitated position allowed, to indicate his harmlessness. He was faced with nothing short of silence.

 

Was there a language barrier? Of course there would be a language barrier, English couldn’t be the elected universal dialect.

 

There were mumbling sounds, accompanied by the removal of the helmet; the incomprehensible words came as a surprise, but James was pretty sure he was being called a primate, which he couldn’t immediately counter with some banter of his own. Instead, he felt his lips part to scoff only to find himself freezing at the sight of the female features of the freshly revealed lavender skinned alien, darker hair framing the puffy face and falling over to the back of their neck, styled to resemble a short mullet. Two yellow sclera adorned with amethyst pupils stared at him with a combination of anger and a hint of what James could guess to be fear, despite the readiness to kill. Plum hued lips were upturned into a pouty frown, eyebrows quirking in inquisition, and on a second look, what initially appeared to be the outline of the armor was, in fact, the dignified shape of large hips, proportions too dreamy to be of this world.

 

“Jesus  _ fuck _ .”, he breathed out at a loss for better – or  _ politer _ – words. It… rather,  _ she _ could kill him with a stare, and he was more than okay with that.

 

James was evidently two sandwiches short of a picnic. He gets to be the first known human to meet an alien – read, the first to have an alien sitting on his ribcage – and the immediate reaction is a bloody boner. That’s as American as it gets, he thoughtlessly mused. She mouthed something, words spat with nothing short of disdain, but a dumbstruck James couldn’t put them together into a coherent sentence.

 

_ That is one dynamite girl. _

 

“I said, where is my pod?”, the woman’s voice had all sorts of edges to it, annoyance being the sharpest, metaphorically stabbing the man through the gut with all sorts of feelings. She wavered only slightly, the grip on the knife becoming loose. She was in pain, the human could tell, even before she winced towards her side.

 

That was an opening.

 

His nose wrinkled with the effort he had to put into his arms and legs to lift himself up, eyes gleaming as a challenge, rolling around so that he'd be the one pinning the aggressor against the spent wooden floor. He gave a faint chuckle at the noise of displeasure he ripped from the alien's throat to have her leg up his shoulder, in a rather promiscuous position. She tried to wiggle free from underneath him, but he kept her in place, wrists held above her head, the knife away from her reach.

 

“Okay, little babe, that's it. Calm down.", he cooed when she stopped grunting and squirming. "I ain't gonna hurt ya."

 

This angle gave James an opportunity to lose himself on the fascinating details about the extraterrestrial woman. Little white fangs poked at the corners of her mouth, marks that could either be of birth origin or tattooed at a later stage in life marked a dark purple stripe from each of her cheeks, dragging down to disappear on the cliff of her jaw. And her neck, Heaven forbid, it was long and graceful, and he wondered what color the peculiarly hued skin would turn if he were to suck on it.

 

"A pod… That's the space ship thing you came out of?”, James attempted to speak calmly, keeping his eyes on her. As if he ever could look away from such a beauty. Kogane loosened his grip on her hands almost out of pity, just enough to let the foreigner know that she could move so long as she didn't attack him - and she didn't, remaining, however, very still and defensive. He had no ill intentions and made sure to be transparent about it by dragging himself away from her and raising his hands again. "I can take you back there, but first you're gonna have to let me patch you up."

 

James gestured towards the wound with his head before adding, "I promise I won't cause you harm."

 

There was no guarantee that those words had been heard; after a soft pained moan, the female’s eyes rolled back into unconsciousness, and her head dropped with a bang on the floor. James cursed under his breath before lifting her in his arms, carrying her back to the bed with a little struggle.

 

He rushed after the fallen supplies and the first-aid kit before dedicating his full attention to the alien girl. She was sweating, little beads of salt veiling her forehead and snaking down her temples. That fever was a bad sign of infection, if the appearance of the wound wasn’t enough, though he couldn’t know if this was “normal”; a species from outer space with an average body temperature above the state of evaporation couldn’t be unheard of. Right? Could he say she looked rather pale? How was he supposed to know?!

 

Despite the questions that flooded his mental inbox, James had to act fast, and so he did, deciding to treat her following normal – scratch that –  _ human _ procedure. Making use of the knife that not long ago threatened to lick his throat open, he ripped the tight latex of her suit, just enough to expose her belly and hipbone and ease the access to the wound, expanding redness with signs of cloudy drainage framing it.

 

First off; stop the bleeding. One of the towels was delicately pressed on the laceration, blood soaking through to the other side in a matter of short seconds. Frowning in concentration, James remembered to not pull the cloth away to replace it with a clean one, but rather place a second towel above the first and stack them gradually. Only by the fourth towel did the blood begin to effectively stanch, allowing a proper look at the wound.

 

Sweet Mother of God, that was a lot of red. At least this alien bled the same color as humans did.

 

He disinfected the slashed side, cleaning it as effectively with mild soap and water first and then alcohol. Would he have to stitch her flesh back up? He wasn’t too experienced with seaming, most of his clothes were ripped and should remain that way until they were no longer wearable, but that was a luxury a living tissue of skin couldn’t have.

 

He ought to disinfect the curved needle as well before moving on to the stitching, even if it was sealed in its package; a fact he very vaguely recalled from those TV shows. That would give him a little while to process the fact that he could barely tend to his own lesions whenever he got himself hurt and was suddenly hoping to save the life of a total alien babe.

 

_ Fuck. _

 

The Texan counted a handful of ways to see this go wrong – between a miscalculated assumption about alien anatomy, incompatible use of tools thought for humans, lack of skill in the stitching moment, or simply being too late and the blood loss invoking her life…

 

Running his fingers through his hair, chest heaving in anticipation, James considered just how many times in his life he had failed. How imminent it was, like a dark pretext to whatever he set his mind to do, that he’d fail again. A tenderized gaze fell upon the stranger in his bed, silently apologizing in advance, his knuckles hesitantly caressing her marked cheek.

 

Those were hypothetical scenarios, and the prophecy not yet written, even if he was as nervous as a whore in church; he could do something, for once, and not even the insecure trembling of his hands or the threat of his heart bumping out of his chest would stop his ass from trying. The risk of further infection increased the longer the cut remained open, so he forced himself to get on and do it, come hell or high water.

 

James took several deep breaths, glaring at the cut as if it’d close itself and he wouldn’t have to go through with this.  Oh well. Leaning in with his elbows on the mattress, the American man pulled the skin open with the aid of a forceps and calculated about two millimeters between each punctuation, cursing at the lack of illumination provided by the yellow desk light.

 

Once the deed was done, the haunting laceration closed, the nurse-that-could-have-been sighed in relief; if he had to look at raw flesh any more, he was sure he would throw up all over his patient. The first stitches had come off a little wonky, he’d admit, but as soon as he got the hang of it the wound was beautifully sutured. Kind of like a shoelace, he mentally remarked with a degree of pride.

 

James felt beyond glad to have stolen the first-aid kit all those years ago from someone who knew how to get ready for eventualities. Who the hell carried actual surgical equipment in the back of their trucks? Bless their heart, whoever and wherever they were.

 

The blood on his hands was wiped clean in the bathroom, the supplies put away and then fetched back, since he could use some wound tending himself. That cut on his eyebrow looked nasty enough to leave a scar, not to mention the rapidly purpling bruises marking his torso and swelling his cheek.

  
_ Fucking woman _ , he muttered, testing the mobility of his hurting jaw in front of the dirty mirror.


	3. III.

The alien jolted awake only in the early morning hours, having slept all night, pulling herself up from the mattress with a slight bounce. The bandage covered her whole torso, gauze neatly tucked around her shape, and she seemed confused at the treatment.

 

Perhaps it was too primitive for her. They totally had machines that could heal open wounds in seconds, right? Or super band-aids that cured anything from a headache to cancer. Endless possibilities.

 

“Morning, sunshine.”, James grumbled from a nearby chair, face hidden behind a mug of instant coffee. Which tasted as terribly as he expected, grainy bits that hadn’t properly dissolved in the water sticking to his molars and making him grimace, tongue sticking out at the bitterness.

 

Yuck. He put the mug away from sight, probably to be forgotten until the next morning, when his body was bound to demand another dose of caffeine.

 

Like a lost deer, the woman looked and palmed around the bed, searching for something. Undoubtedly her precious dagger, the one James grabbed from the sheathe of his belt, teasing the pad of his middle finger with the acute tip. This was unlike any metal he had seen, so light and easy to use but not for him. It was silly to think that the blade was sentient, but James felt like he was holding out to something that was alive, in dormant state. Not surprising, considering where it came from. “This what ya looking for? Couldn’t have it lying around after you attempted to gut me, I’m sure you understand.”

 

“…”, the woman’s stare pierced through him, and he had to swallow a breath to force himself to stand straight. Damn, she was gorgeous. The type of woman who could step on him, crush him, hurt him, without him minding. Just  _ wow _ .

 

“First things first.”, he rose an eyebrow, sporting a small corner smile to match the angle, “You guys do names in Mars?”

 

“I don’t come from Mars, not even from this Solar System, you dimwitted--…”, the alien sucked on her lower lip to resign herself from continuing, probably realizing the lack of dimension in James’ knowledge and labeling it unworthy of an explanation, a frown knitting her brows together. “It is not necessary for you to know what I’m called. It’s not a name you’ll be using.”

 

“Kitten it is.”, James shrugged, pretending to examine the knife, toying with it in his hands; he was sure that he had seen it bigger at some point in the night before.

 

“Krolia… It’s Krolia.”

 

James grimaced with a vague sense of victory, tentatively rolling her name on his southern tongue, chewing on it before dragging it out in a funny accent. What did he expect? She sure didn’t look like a  _ Mary _ . He repeated with narcissistic snark, “ _ Kitten _ .”

 

“My blade, human. Now!”, Krolia demanded, emitting a sound similar to an animal’s growl, open hand extended towards James. She  _ could _ annihilate him on the spot, and maybe the only thing that stopped her was the aching wound on her side.

 

“First, I want answers.”, the brunet demanded.

 

The purple skinned woman sat back on her ankles, legs crossed beneath her. That just  _ couldn’t _ be comfortable, James considered in thought, but proceeded, deciding she accepted his terms.

 

“What did you come to Earth for?” Hopefully that wouldn’t make him sound like some Power Ranger ready to defend his home planet.

 

“I didn’t plan to. My pod system was unresponsive, my engine damaged, and your planet happened to be the closest for an emergency landing.”, her tone was nothing short of factual, deprived of any lie as far as James could detect. “A rougher landing than I would assume, obviously.”

 

“Hm.”, he nodded. So Krolia had no intention to begin the preparations for world domination. Remarkable, facing his expectations. “What happened for you to get your engines damaged? Missed your check-up at space mechanic?”

 

“A fight.”

 

He looked back on his previous thought. So much about harmless aliens. “A fight. Who were you fighting?”

 

“The answer to that question is irrelevant to  _ you _ .”

 

“Hardly.”, the man countered, finally getting up and stretching his spine. James wondered of her race, these purple skinned humanoids. She had the looks of an intergalactic Queen, despite the warrior vibe about her; maybe this Krolia was some sort of royalty and they’d do anything to retrieve her, even destroy whatever planets stood between them. “There are more like you, yeah?”

 

“Yes.”, again, no emotion in her words and no intention of revealing too much.

 

“Won’t they… be looking for you?”, he gestured towards Krolia with his hands, as if this question was implied on the previous one. Couldn’t she pick up these subtle conversation hints?

 

That earned him a pause and finally some hesitation in her words.

 

“I had a mission... They will consider my absence a failure and label me dead.”

 

“Wait, what?!”

 

“The mission is of the utmost importance. And I failed. That’s all there is to it. I’ll just have to find a way to get back up there myself.”

 

Determined. He liked that, even if he was starting to see that it could be in vain.

 

“Don’t know if you missed it, Kitten, but your fancy pod was completely wrecked.”, after that, silence. James considered not pushing the topic any further but concluded it with one more sentence. “Unless you can build a new one out of basic metal scraps, you might as well call your superior and let him know you could use the pick-up.”

 

“… I’ll have to make do on my own.”

 

He couldn’t deny the sadness behind those words, with the lower tone and the slight frown on her pretty face; a hint of fear and uncertainty clouded her eyes as well, he dared to guess. So much about Krolia being royalty with fleets of worshippers willing to come to her rescue; were he one of those aliens, he would do whatever he could and couldn’t to get her back. As much as he gathered, though, she was but a dispensable soldier, and this boss of hers had the power to decide that she should remain discarded in a planet she didn’t even know.

 

What an  _ ass _ .

 

The woman shifted to pull her legs against her chest, arms protectively curling around herself. Her long claws dug into the muscled skin of her own biceps and James sighed silently when he saw her hiding her face between her knees. With that, Kogane felt obliged to suppress any other question about her kind, her ways, her culture, and adapted a gentle tone. He tried sitting on the edge of the bed, but Krolia scrambled away immediately, desperate to keep a safety distance between them. James didn’t insist, holding his hands up .

 

“Look. Whatever happens – if your E.T. friends come for you, or not – you can just… stay here. It’s fine. We’ll work something out, yeah? I promi--”

 

Their little one-sided bonding moment was interrupted by the sound of a vehicle approaching; no, two. They parked close-by and James had to connect a couple dots in his head to figure out who the heck would come to visit.

 

The knocking was nearly immediate, threatening to tear the goddamned door down with a heavy fist.  _ Easy _ , man.

 

“Okay…”, he whispered to the alien, gently dropping the knife in front of her. She didn’t reach for it immediately but locked her breathtaking gaze with James’, silently questioning the legitimacy of this act of trust. Good lord, she was so  _ intense _ . “Whatever you do, don’t let them see you. I don’t know who they are, or what they want, but there’s no telling what they can do if they find you. Or me, at this point. So, stay hidden, you hear?”

 

James preferred to not wait for an answer and immediately turned, heading towards the living room, peeking from the side window at the visitor.

 

A tall man wearing a grey army uniform, surprisingly bald for someone who couldn’t be far from his early thirties, stood with his hands behind his back, a look of tension, serious as the business end of a .45, menace darkening his features in a frown. He recognized the color of the uniform as those belonging to the Galaxy Garrison, a glorified NASA branch for high-school dreamers who wanted to follow the paths of science, engineering, space exploration and what not.

 

Well, fuck, they  _ were _ looking for Krolia. After all, the fall of an interstellar object hadn’t gone unnoticed by the government. Of course not, bastards never missed their taxes, let alone an UFO ripping through the atmosphere and causing a ruckus of a landing in the Arizona desert. It wouldn’t take much math to realize that the ship hadn’t flown itself either, so they would be searching the surroundings of the incident, looking for the pilot. Rubbing his stubble in thought, James found himself out of any other option than to open the door, eyeing the officer from head to toe as if measuring him. Maybe he should’ve bothered to put on a T-shirt, at least; messy hair, dark circles and loose jeans made it seem like he had been interrupted during a jerk off session or crystal meth cooking. Either of those options were not a good first impression.

 

He received a silent nod, which he promptly ignored to look over at the other officers: two policemen, an older man in a fancy suit and sunglasses, and a blonde woman with an army uniform identical to the man who stood before him. Catching her curious gaze, James automatically winked with flirtatious intent, effectively making her look back down to her notes with a flushed expression, erratically scribbling something.

 

“Good morning. I’m Lieutenant Mitch Iverson, from the Galaxy Garrison. I’ve a few questions for you, Mr.…”, a second to confirm the documents in his hand, “Mr. James Kogane?”

 

“’S me. Last I checked.”, that much this Iverson had figured. From this angle he could make out a copy of his ID and criminal record on the man’s hands, accompanied by a stapled mugshot from the last time he had been escorted to the Police station for crossing speed limits. Lovely. “What have I done this time? Am I in trouble?”

 

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”, the dark-skinned man wasn’t too concerned about being delicate, was he? Good; James wouldn’t mess around either. He straightened his back, gaining a few inches of height to look the other in the eyes. Maybe if he had a shirt on and that lousily-placed hip tattoo he got at juvenile hall tucked away from sight, he’d have packed a few intimidation points. “Where were you, last night? Say, between 2000 and 2200.”

 

Was that the time of the crash? Perhaps extended for a few hours, because he very clearly remembered the last bleeding of the sunset. James’ mind dwelled back to his pitiful drinking session, as well as the gun that had probably remained forgotten between the pillows of his crappy couch. Had he gone through with the urge of pulling the trigger, he would’ve missed the chance of meeting a purple skinned goddess. Was that the sign he asked from God last night? “Hmmm… Home, I guess?”, he muttered the partial lie after a short sigh.

 

“Care to report any strange noises during that time?”

 

“What, did the neighbors complain again?”, the joke would’ve landed very well, had the man any sense of humor, but instead Iverson rose his eyebrows with an unimpressed expression, glancing at both sides of the shack as if to check the obvious fact that there was no one living in the radius of at least a few miles. “Maybe I was sleeping, then.”

 

“You’re trying to tell me, Mr. Kogane, that you didn’t as much  _ notice _ what resembled an earthquake and nearly destroyed your house?”

 

“Nope.”, he popped the last syllable with his cheeks, slowly shaking his head. “I came back home late, maybe I missed it?”

 

“In that 1970 F100?”, the officer gestured to the pickup truck parked by the storage annex, without sparing a glance at it.

 

“The one and only, my baby Red.”

 

“I assume you’re hurt, then.”

 

Ah, right. The blood on the seat. What a shrewd little Sherlock, this Iverson guy. Luckily, James came up with an understandable back-up story, pointing at the cut on his brow and gesturing towards his conveniently jeans-coated leg. “Job accident. Fell and got my leg and eyebrow slashed.”

 

“I see.”, he wasn’t too convinced, but it’d work for now. “May I look around your… home?”, there was disdain with a hint of pity in that word, but James paid it no mind.

 

“Ya don’t need a warrant for that, Mitch?”, the challenging tone hadn’t gone unnoticed, the eye of the Garrison operative twitching.

 

“Not if you’d be as kind as to invite me in.”

 

That was trouble. To deny access to his place right now would imply that he was hiding something – someone, in fact. He knew this asshole wouldn’t let him go. His best shot was to hope that Krolia wouldn’t decide to come out and attack the snooper on sight since she wasn’t exactly known to react otherwise.

 

“Suit yerself.”, he grunted with a shrug, stepping aside to allow the authoritarian in.

James leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed defensively over his chest, seeing the Inspector’s nose wrinkle as he eyed the mess in the living room. Broken glass, the makeshift table turned upside down, his books scattered about. As much as the American man considered blaming it all on the accident last night, there was no hiding that this shack had seen better days. He didn’t clean after himself too often, some clothes spread around, forgotten take-away boxes, empty beer cans and scotch bottles, and dirty dishes left here and about. Should he bother to look through a microscope, he could probably find small bacterial ecosystems within the mold of some leftovers he had around.

 

“Needs some dusting. Don’t mind it much.”, he commented with a smirk, much to the other male’s annoyance. He paced across the room, trying not to step on anything, but eventually resorted to standing still and scanning with his eyes instead.

 

“That a Colt?”, Iverson questioned, eyebrow threatening to fly away from his forehead. James didn’t expect any less of an observation. “On the couch.”

 

“So that’s where I left it.”

 

“You should be careful with guns, Mr. Kogane.”, for a second there, James feared the request of a license; the one he hadn’t renewed in a couple years now. Oops. Iverson glanced at the single door, presuming it’d lead to a bedroom, suggesting his intent of walking to the division and explore it as well. “You live alone?”

 

“I do. Coming into my house is one thing but you should at least take me out for dinner before I invite you to my bedroom.”, that was the drop that spilled the glass, James was sure, as Iverson grunted and stomped his way out of the shack, gesturing to his colleagues, who moved to the vehicles like ants.

 

“Should you see anything, or  _ anyone _ suspicious… Make sure to let me know.”, a business card with the Galaxy Garrison logo was flipped towards James’ hand and he took it without as much looking at it, hiding it on his back pocket.

 

“Gotcha, buddy.”

 

The Texan man saw the other go, taking the driver’s seat on one of the jeeps and driving away, followed closely by the second vehicle.

 

That was close.

 

James tried not to look too eager to go back inside, bare feet so used to walk over broken glass and wooden splinters that the pain didn’t even process as he walked to the bedroom.

 

Or attempted to.

 

A few tugs on the doorknob made him sigh. “Open up. He’s gone now, yer safe.”

 

No answer, but there was some ruffling on the other side, as if she were moving things around, or rather, the only piece of furniture he owned being pushed. There was a thud against the door, the line of light underneath disappearing and after that, nothing short of silence. Had she barricaded the door with the goddamned bedside table?!  _ What the fuck. _

 

“Oh no you don’t--…!” Taking a step back for impetus, James elbowed the door, hearing it crack but not giving in; this whole place almost crumbled to dust with the landing the night prior, but this damn door barely budged at the contact.  _ Incredible _ . Both his fist and his side were repeatedly sent towards the wooden surface, in a series of punches and shoves. He might’ve insulted the woman in the meantime too. Who the hell did she think she was?!

 

“LEAVE ME, HUMAN.”

 

“FINE! WHATEVER.” He snapped after a second, voice coated in ire, as he turned around to kick the door with his heel before flopping down to sit against it.  _ Fucking _ … He buried his face in his palms out of frustration, fingernails digging into his skull. He should’ve just given Krolia away to that Iverson guy and let the government handle her. What was he thinking, hiding a dangerous alien from the big guys? This could get him jailed for life. Not like he wouldn’t appreciate the shortcut to certain early death (God knows that’s what would happen to him if he went back in), but was she even worth the hassle, thanking him like this?

 

Once his pulse returned to normal, the fire dying out briefly, James considered both sides of the coin; yes, he had an alien fenced up in his bedroom, establishing a domain that wasn’t hers to keep and destabilizing his whole existence in general, but it wasn’t him who was alone and scared and… discarded. If Krolia doesn’t manage to return to space, she had nothing. No people, no purpose, no reason to even go on doing whatever she had spent her life working for.

 

He could relate to her to some extent. A broken man and a forsaken alien; maybe they weren’t as different as their racial identity proposed. Or maybe if she didn’t happen to be such a hot piece of ass he would’ve been angrier at this whole situation for longer.

 

Looking down to his bare torso, he murmured, unsure he’d be heard, “Can I at least have a shirt?”

 

After a small hesitation, the furniture was slowly pushed on the other side, and the support against James’ back was momentarily lost. A piece of fabric was thrown at his face and then the door was closed once again, not even allowing enough time to lay eyes on Krolia.

 

A shame, really. But at least he had a moss-green shirt to get him through the day.


	4. IV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picking up the broken pieces of my heart after that season 6. Pretty heavy, but beautiful stuff!!
> 
> While I have your attention, please take a look at [this Krames piece](http://blueyblues.tumblr.com/post/174895350048/s6-is-almost-here-and-hopefully-we-get-to-see) by BlueyBlues, based of a couple sneak peeks she's been getting of the future of this story! Take a look at her work while you're around her Tumblr, she draws some sweet Voltron stuff!

He might’ve closed his eyes as time slipped away into the afternoon, the nap on the floor doing nothing besides fucking up his already aching spine. No sound came from the locked bedroom, but he knew Krolia was still inside; perhaps she slept, since she needed the rest to heal properly and organize her head around her current situation. 

 

Maybe… she had cried. Did aliens cry? That much James didn’t know, but all living things felt hunger and his stomach was demanding enough.

 

That was when Kogane decided to get up, dragging his feet towards the kitchen. The fridge was as empty as he felt, save for a few strips of bacon, week old KFC take-away leftovers and cans of beer. He helped himself to one of the latter, bringing out the bacon and the single egg he found. There was also some tuna on the cupboard, so that would do it.

 

The TV buzzed for a few minutes before it tuned in any particular channel, sound creaking a bunch of unpleasant decibels until it became coherent speech. In a talk-show of sorts, the hosts promoted adoption over the purchase of an animal, sponsored by a local shelter and accompanied by an expert. This old man spoke about general mistakes people tended to commit when bringing a pet home. While waiting for the oil in the pan to warm up, James leaned his hip against the kitchen counting, granting this national TV show a chance to get his attention over the urge to change to VH1.

 

“ _ Cats are territorial, _ ”, the man explained, petting the long-haired cat on his lap like the villain of a kid’s show. _ “Coming into a new home leaves them feeling really uneasy. There’s all that unexplored space, and who knows what may lurk there. Do them a favor and provide a small area to call their own for the first few days or weeks. _ ”

 

His mind drifted back to the woman in his room, the parallel inevitably being established; Krolia had claimed her territory alright, even if that’d leave him to sleep on the floor. Hopefully it wouldn’t drag out for as long as the week, otherwise he’d be needing a fix for his back.

 

Was he really taking advice from a veterinarian? Seemed like he was. Where had he left that old notebook…?

 

“ _ Your newly adopted cat may not eat much or at all at first. It’s best to give your cat the same food they had at the shelter or in their foster home, at least at first. Keeping some things familiar will make them feel more secure. _ ”

 

James snorted at that; space cat food would be hard to come by in Arizona. Maybe if Krolia would let him into the room or simply told him more about her and her kind, customs and habits, then they could find a way to make this work, adapting her to Earth’s lifestyle. James could understand the need for isolation after such a tragic turn of events since some big decisions had to be made; living on Earth in hiding for the rest of her life, with purple skin and yellow eyes and homicidal tendencies…? No way that’d end up well. However, what were the odds of her ever returning to her stars?

 

A sizzling noise diverted his gaze back to the pan, and he laid the strips of bacon to let them cook, wincing at the splattered drop of oil that landed on his forearm. Hopefully this Kitten liked Earthen eggs and bacon as much as the Intergalactic Diner version of the dish. He ate some, though not much, because he wanted to make sure Krolia had a solid amount of food in her as well.

 

“Hey. Can you hear me?” James returned to the bedroom door with the dish in hand, speaking with the least menacing tone of voice he could manage. Absentmindedly, he leaned his forehead against the wooden surface as he spoke. “I have some food here for ya. I gotta leave for a bit to get groceries, but I’ll be back soon.”

 

At this point, he didn’t expect to hear anything back so he set the plate in front of the door, turned to grab his boots and leave the shack, truck keys spinning around his finger.

~*~

 

“My, my, look what the cat dragged in!”, a man, in his late-twenties just like James, saluted with a tilt of his head. Blond hair split at the tips, days spent under the Arizona sun drying the once golden strands into a bleached, unhealthy aspect, though the man’s smile was always the same, dropping at the corner and mischievously perking up on the opposite side. Sal Garcia looked about the same as he did back in high school, if not for the overall volume he had gained over years of being married to the best cook in town. Lucky fucker. “Thought you’d be dead by now, Kogane, never heard back from you.”

 

“Not quite dead yet but well on my way.”, with no real humor, James exited his truck with a slam of his door before extending his hand towards the other and being pulled into a quick hug. The scent of his old friend’s cologne stuck to his own shirt, causing his nose to itch. “How ya been, Sal?”

 

“Alright. Gonna pick up my baby girl from ballet class in an hour or so.”

 

How pitiful, that someone’s answer to being asked how they are is exclusively focused on how their children have been doing. Was that all life came down to? Snotty offsprings? James eyerolled very discreetly and took solace in the fact that he would probably never be like that. He drifted off to review a mental grocery list while Sal babbled about how his daughter was the cutest little brat in her class and an overachiever for an eight-year-old.

 

A wallet was pulled out, and a series of photographs presented to him. James should’ve stayed home.

 

A playful nudge on his shoulder brought him back just in time to hear the question, “But enough about my baby girl. What about you? What’s new?”

 

_ Oh you know, same old. I have a wounded alien barricaded in my bedroom; she happens to be quite the bombshell, but her temper… Yikes.  _

 

“Not much.”, he replied with a dismissive shrug after a bit too long. “Just picking up some groceries.”

 

“Thought ye were as broke as a stick horse.”

 

“Am I ever not?”

 

Sal frowned heavily with concern and stepped into James’ personal space, much to his discomfort. A finger was raised towards his eyebrow, inspecting the wound there, “Did you get in a fight, Kogane?! It’s been like ten years, don’t you ever change?”

 

“Nah, man, I… have a cat.” Not a  _ complete _ lie. Except this particular kitten had the hottest bod with the most audacious curves and James just kinda really wanted to put his dick in her.

 

“You? James Daniel Kogane?”, the mention of his full name earned Sal the second eyeroll of the day, this one backed with no effort to hide it. “With a  _ pet _ ? Unbelievable.”

 

“She’s a little bitch but keeps me company.”  _ Hardly. _

 

“That’s why we get married, friend.”

 

Sal, who had a bell clapper instead of a tongue, insisted on catching up over coffee, to which James was in no position to say no because it had been days since he had a proper warm beverage. His old friend insisted that he’d pay, so all the better for James. The conversation wasn’t as unpleasant as he would’ve initially predicted, though, easy words rolling out of their mouths for casual yet comfortable subjects. After the rollercoaster of the past day, James was glad for the step on the breaks. Half-hour and a sandwich later he was saying his goodbyes and loosely promising to make an appearance at Sal’s barbeque party in the weekend.

 

Both men knew he wasn’t going to show up (he never did), but the two smiled anyway as they walked their separate ways.

 

~*~

 

Grocery shopping was always harrowing for one who could barely pay half of what he needed; but since James had plenty of arrows in his quiver, or rather, a killer smile and a pining cashier, he had managed to charm his way out of a whole bag of food and some fruit. 

 

Jenny was a lovely girl, but too dumb for her own sake. A little flirt and she was bought in his crap.

 

Kogane drove back to the shack, resting his forehead against the wheel for a few minutes before gathering the strength to open the car door and walk towards the porch. He  _ could _ pick up the key in his back pocket like a proper civilian, but he never actually bothered to lock it; no one came around these parts without a purpose, and no one wanted anything to do with a creepy old shack in the middle of nowhere.

 

Standing in the porch, James was left to wonder if Krolia was still there. She could have run away, she wasn’t being held captive (if anything, she was holding  _ herself _ captive). But where would she go to? No idea. She probably had no idea herself. Taking some sort of comfort in that thought, he kicked the door open, holding the grocery bags against himself and was still on time to witness the bedroom door closing. The plate that once had some food had been raided, licked clean even, were James to guess.

 

There was some satisfaction in that, so he abided in it, a grin tugging at his lips. Maybe he felt a sense of purpose out of the first time in a very long time, even if that’d pass by having to take care of a stray alien who occupied his bedroom like she owned it.

  
~*~  
  


_ Day 11, week 2. _

 

Stress cleaning was a thing, right? James told himself that it totally was, while sweeping the dusty floor of the shack with olympic determination, raising a cloud of brown at each movement.  Had he ever bothered to clean before? If he had, he didn’t even remember; heck, James didn’t own anything but a dust cloth, but Sal had been kind enough to lend him a broom, a vacuum cleaner and some generic cleaning supplies upon request. Some questions followed, but James dodged them with trained artistry.

 

“You?” Sal had exclaimed. “Doing housework? You sure you don’t have a girlfriend now?”

 

The place was filthy, to be honest, and James was going crazy so he allied both desperations into one, and dusted his frustrations away.

 

Such frustrations resumed to one name: Krolia.

 

With no access to the bedroom, he had been (barely) sleeping on the padless couch, his spine cracking in complaint. His “wardrobe” was limited to the same shirt Krolia had tossed at him, the jeans he was wearing that day, and also a pair of shorts and a sleeveless white tee he had lying around. With the door locked, he had no way of using the bathroom either. He  _ craved _ madly for a proper shower (he had had to make do with the hose outside), but without any soap or shower gel, his own body odor disgusted him. He had been taking shits outside, for fuck’s sake, this was no way to live.

 

This unreachable parallel reality that had taken control of his bedroom had to come to an  _ end _ .

 

Thinking like that often took him to stand in front of the door, sporting his best choleric frown, fist ready to bang against the wooden surface to get Krolia’s attention, but he never really did find the heart to go through with his fit. She was terrified, he knew that much. Krolia was lost and James was the only one who could help her regain some sense of grounding. This wasn’t about him - despite the instability the whole situation brought upon him - so he’d give her time to settle; she needed that.

 

In the meantime, he would obsessively scrub the layers and layers of dirt out of the wooden floor to the timeless 80’s VH1 tunes that banged on the speakers.

 

_ Day 17, week 3 _

 

He was spending more money than he had in food, forcing himself to cook regular meals for Krolia and as well for himself, as an extension. Heck, he was never too good around the pan, but for the past three weeks he mastered the art of unburnt and actually edible meals. He watched cooking shows on TV just so he’d know how to balance a meal, a fun little science he never bothered to give two shits about before; it’s been years since his last medical check-up, and judging by his eating habits and newly acquired knowledge, his blood pressure levels must be crazy high. How he had survived thus far without a stroke was a mystery.

 

Krolia didn’t eat her greens, though. James wouldn’t blame her, broccoli were the absolute worst, but they were a great source of vitamins K and C, of folic acid and also provided potassium and fiber. Would her kind even need that? Was high cholesterol a concern in space? He worried he was killing her slowly while trying to achieve the opposite, but she ate everything else with no problem at all. If it were poisonous for her species, she wouldn’t consume it, would she?

 

All this for a creature who barely allowed him to look at her. The milestone of a whole month of living together - well,  _ barely _ \- with an alien approached, and James was determined to not force anything upon Krolia, but he grew impatient. Without imposing, the door remained close but no longer tightly locked and the meals were reached for seconds after they were put down for her, rather than cooling in the air until he exited the house.

 

Such was the case of day 21, week 3, in which Krolia was already waiting with the door half opened for her plate. It was set in front of her silently and she waited until he took two steps back before sticking her long arm out to reach for it.

 

He observed, arms crossed over his chest. She seemed… fine. Healthy, at least, as much as a purple skinned alien Amazon babe could look. Her cheeks were cutely puffed and she looked up at him in the form of an elegant jaguar, her shoulder blades like valleys on her back as she lowered herself defensively, the hint of a fang peeking through her dry lips. The bandages around her torso needed an urgent change and he was itching to inspect the state of the wound, but he wouldn’t play the nurse again until she allowed him near her claimed space.

 

He just hoped she was using the toilet, dear God, he would  _ not _ submit himself to cleaning piss and Martian poop from the wooden boards in the corner of the bedroom.

 

Did aliens even pee?

 

“Hey there, Kitten.” He saluted from a safe distance, her amethyst eyes locking with his with alarm. The low grunting noise she made before retreating with her meal felt like a small reward, which made James smile.

 

Adorable little kitten, she was.

 

~*~

 

It wasn’t until the fifth week that the door was infinitely left open.

 

James blinked awake way too early in the morning, when the sun had barely risen, but couldn’t drift back into the sweet embrace of temporary unconsciousness. Instead, his indigo colored eyes fixated on the partial darkness of the stolen bedroom. He didn’t move to get up, he wouldn’t dare to; but he couldn’t help but to stare into the division, assimilating the obvious changes.

 

Weeks had passed since he had last been allowed a look inside the room he pretty much used to reside in. It didn’t look like the same place anymore, whatever few belongings he had rearranged at the taste of a stranger. Like he had hired a self-acclaimed interior designer, fresh out of a shady unheard-of college down south.

 

Kogane licked his lips, squinting as he tried to make out the shapes in the darkness. She was there, laying sideways on the mattress, a sight to marvel at, contoured by lazy orange sunlight. The hugest of hips, a sharp curve down her thick thighs made his breath hitch silently. Maybe them aliens had no concept of sheets and being cozy and covered during their slumber, because she had them kicked to the end of the makeshift bed, but hell, was James glad for that. At some point in the past days she had removed her shredded dominatrix-kind-of-body-suit and seized the ownership of a plain red shirt.

 

Part of him wanted to be angry at her for using the one good piece of clothing he owned without permission, but the other (unfortunately the loudest) was incredibly aroused at how the edge of the collar slipped down her shoulder, how the fabric was so big on her but she still made it work.

 

Now, Krolia wasn’t a small woman; her stature was about as tall as James himself, if not a bit higher ever, and she had enough power in them biceps to pin him down and own him. It was some sort of patrilineal feeling that made the shirt around her seem bigger than her, as if James’ own arms encircled her, but in fact, it fit her just fine.

 

It wasn’t until she shifted slightly in her sleep that he noticed that aliens probably weren’t familiar with the concept of underwear. 

 

Actually, he was just horny.

 

He stared down at himself, bare chest inflating with a deep inhale, abs that needed a little more work to remain firm, the blurry lines of an old cross tattoo on his left hip bone (his biggest regret from juvenile hall), and a thin blanket tenting at his crotch. Well,  _ fuck _ .

 

Of course his libido would grab him by the balls and remind him to act like a helpless hormonal teenager at the sight of a nice piece of ass. His large hand slipped underneath the cover and the elastic edge of his underwear, cock pulsing against his palm.

 

Was he really going to fap to a sleeping purple lady? That had to be a whole new level of immoral.

 

Shit, he earned this little moment. For longer than he had to, he had put up with a foreign presence in his house; Krolia could take away his privacy, his home, his long-gone dignity, but by God, she would not have his fapping time. In a way, she would be contaminating that private time as well, but that was something he had some control and choice over, for once.

 

He tried to picture what she would feel like; the limited physical contact they had shared had been enough to note that her skin was of a dense luxurious velvet, a very short kind of fur. It was soft to the touch, woven tufted, the several scars creating texture breaks but making the map of her body all the more interesting to explore. Krolia’s resemblance to a wild cat were as uncanny as they were terrifying.

 

He might have imagined her mewling, and  _ fuck _ , that went straight to the thick vein on the underside of his cock. 

 

Pulling at the skin and stroking his full length lazily with practiced wrist movements, James tilted his head back, eyes closing at the mental image of Krolia spread open in all her exotic phenomenon. It was barely visible from that angle – and James later blamed this on his fertile imagination – but he could totally see the underside of her breast. What a beauty… Squeezing at the tip, James bit back a groan, gaze befalling over the dangerous silhouette of the woman in the bedroom. 

 

_ What would her cunt be like? _

 

She still slept, breathing steadily and unmoved, so he held his own breath to speed up his strokes, picturing her leaking entrance taking him so willingly, claws grasping at his back and probably drawing blood, her fangs sinking into his shoulder as she moaned through her lips, how fucking  _ hot _ she was _ , yes yes yes-- _

 

His movements came to a halt when the Holy Spirit descended from the heavens and slapped him across the face with sudden guilt and repentance, accusing him of being heathen filth unworthy of salvation and condemned to an eternity of burning in the blazes of Hell.

 

_ What in the actual  _ **_fuck_ ** _ are you doing, Kogane? _

 

Jerking off to an extraterrestrial? With her sleeping in his room? With an exasperated sigh, he gave up on his boner, the once determined jerking hand falling limp on his side, deprived of any further will to do its job. What bullshit. He was still hard, but it felt so  _ wrong _ , so degrading, even for himself.

 

Punching the side of the couch out of grievance as he got up, James adjusted the hem of his shirt and the edge of his pants to cover himself. He only hoped a fair dose of coffee and a whole lot of ignoring would make the erection go away.

 

Unbelievable. If only common sense and reason would hit him once he was  _ done _ . That would’ve been so much better than walking around with a fucking crowbar between his legs.

 

Had he remained on the couch for a few seconds longer, he would’ve seen the unnatural yellow scleras scanning his every move over her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the recent canon info, I'll have to adapt some parts of the chapters I have ready to be posted, but the core of the story will still be the same I was planning from the beginning. Thank you for reading this fic thus far!


	5. V.

“I don’t like those.”

 

Krolia’s grave voice came from behind him, making him jump lightly as he stirred a couple vegetables at the stove. Part of him was counting on a sneaky approach from the alien, that sure was her signature entrance style; ripping through the atmosphere, sneakily stealing the area of his bedroom for over a month… A sudden whisper behind him shouldn’t startle him as much as it did. Trying not to look over at her too much, James simply nodded. “They’re good for ya, Kitten. Do try to shove ‘em down, at least.”

 

Their interaction had been more or less regular since she first left the room; there were distant stares, which progressed into little conversations, and finally, an acceptable form of co-existence. Kind of. She didn’t allow physical contact, but he wouldn’t endeavour into such dangerous grounds, though he had managed to convince her to allow him to change her bandages. Those were a total mess of an imminent infection, luckily prevented. It was amazing how fast she had recovered, the gash of a month ago already knitted into a scar of light lavender color.

 

James did notice one thing; whenever Krolia was out of the bedroom, she chased him around wherever he went. If he was cooking, she’d be looking over his shoulder, as was the case; when he watched television, she made a point to grumble at every single thing she heard, commenting on how annoying and uncovering the local news channel was, though she was rather fascinated by National Geographic wildlife documentaries; if he was fixing his truck outside, there she was as well, arms crossed over her chest as she look at the motor and attempted to compare the primitive human mechanics to more advanced  _ Galra _ tech (that was a big word, the name of her species which had been loosely dropped in an unrelated situation). If he didn’t always insist to leave her outside of the bathroom while he had to use it, she would shamelessly follow him in there as well.

 

Backtracking to the words spoken by that wise veterinarian on TV, “ _ your new cat may hide at first, but it will explore when no one is watching, becoming more comfortable with its new home. After that adaptation period, your cat will likely want plenty of attention from you _ ”, it did make some sense.

 

Kogane couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate it. To have someone with him… It was nice. Really. 

 

Even if the goddamned woman was such a motherfucking tease most of the time.

 

The alien rested her palms on the counter, pulling herself up to balletically sit on it. James had to pretend not to notice that she was naked from the waist down, which just… couldn’t be hygienic, but dang, it was  _ hot _ . To be death drop jealous of a black marble counter was alarming but he sure as heck was craving to have her sitting on his face instead. 

 

Heck, what a bomb. Her shoulders were broad, broader than a human woman would have, arms that could destroy him and thighs that could kill. He wished he had any power over the direction his gaze steered to, but there was no controlling this wreckage; her legs were just  _ endless _ , velvety smooth, thick and muscled as she crossed the left over the right, her butt cheeks mushed against the flat surface of the countertop. 

 

The despair that burned his lower belly with this fatal attraction would end up giving him a stroke. 

 

“You know my name, human, why don’t you use it?”

 

There was certainly no hidden intent for those words to sound as sensual and suggestive as they did - if anything they were razor sharp -, but James’ perverted mind did the math all wrong to suit his tastes and God help him if he didn’t consider replying with “You’ll have to make me scream it if you wanna hear it that bad”.

 

“Well, why don’t ya don’t use mine?” He flipped the veggie mixture in the  _ sauté _ pan with a recently acquired expertise from YouTube videos; clearly, the alien wasn’t impressed, an eyebrow raised at the contents of the pan when they were gracefully dropped on the plate next to a balanced piece of previously prepared grilled chicken breast. 

 

She had never been this close to him, not willingly, so he tried his luck in enclosing the distance, a short step towards her as he flipped the gas of the stove off.

 

There was a considering snit at his words and a shrug. “James.”

 

Oh wow, did it sound libidinous, slowly rolling out of her foreign tongue like that. Just…  _ wow _ .

 

“So you do listen to me at times. I thought you didn’t know my name at all,  _ Krolia _ .” She didn’t move away, their faces inches apart. Barely able to speak, he sighed the words out, breath hovering her cheek in an indirect caress. 

 

“I do,  _ James _ .”

 

“ _ Krolia. _ ”

 

The silence that followed was filled with the intensity of a staring contest, one that Krolia was determined to win because losing was not even within her ampled vocabulary. James, however, had already lost that battle, squandered in the first few seconds he inhaled her scent from up close, dove into her eyes and succumbed to her unspoken spell.

 

_ Fuck, she was beautiful. _ A penny for her thoughts, and he hoped they matched his. 

 

He stepped away from her for his own selfish sake. Maybe if he busied himself by washing the kitchen utensils he had used in the making of lunch, he’d calm the raging boner in his pants and ease the intoxication of her mere presence. 

 

The food was gone in an instant; Krolia wasn’t one to take too long to chew her food. As predicted, she didn’t even touch the asparagus. Carrots, red cabbage, the white ends of the leek, peppers? No problem. But no green would enter the woman’s mouth. Stubborn little thing. Well, James helped himself to the leftovers before wiping the plate clean, chewing on the very unique earthy flavor; rather bitter, which meant they were overcooked. No wonder Krolia wasn’t too keen on them, James almost spit them out himself.

 

“I must go back.”

 

“And just how are ya plannin’ to do that?” He questioned as he concentrated on scrubbing clean a particularly nasty dried stain on the dish and setting it aside when he deemed it unsalvageable. “Your ship is wrecked, and I don’t happen to have a spaceship waiting for you in the garage, y’know.”

 

He didn’t even really have a garage, just a concrete outbuilding full of junk and spider webs. Probably a dead skunk in a corner. He didn’t dare to speculate what else lurked in there.

 

It went without saying that she needed to get back to space. James had thought about it before and done a little math to figure that there was no place for a purple being among humanity, nor was she too interested in staying. She had a duty, apparently, a part on a gigantic war she never fully explained, but he preferred not knowing at all under the risk of actually believing any of it was true.

 

For a split second, the absurdity of the whole situation struck him like a bowling ball to the teeth. How crazy it was that he was so "okay" with being inches apart from an alien woman who could very much destroy him, and his body merely reacted by spontaneously releasing a bunch of horny hormones down to his groin? Fucking crazy, that's how. His fight or flight sensors were very likely broken; either that or they only worked on his cock.

 

She was talking, he realized, while lost in his thoughts. What a fuck-up, Kogane. Try and keep up to the pretty lady, would you?

 

A hand on a waist didn't have to be as hot but whenever Krolia poked her hip to the side and rested one palm over the sharp angle between her thorax and hipbone, James was just lost, hypnotized by any graceful gesture this goddess would perform. "James. Are you listening to me?" 

 

"Huh? Ye'. Totally." He lied. How hard could it be to keep up from this point? Judging by the feral look in Krolia's expression, he had just missed the whole point of an essay.

 

"Look, you will either help me, or get out of my way." Her voice was all edges, sharp as the dagger she brought with her, sharp as her whole attitude, sharp as the pair of amethyst eyes which burned into James’ own. Krolia stood inches apart, her slight height advantage working in her favor to look down upon Kogane’s puny existence. If her blade wasn’t kept safely in the bedroom, then it’d be pointing at his Adam’s Apple, a gulp away from cutting through flesh. “I do not need any more obstacles, much less caused by the likes of you.”

 

“Calm down, babe.” He offered, raising his hands. Instinct told him to back the hell down, Krolia was as capable of grabbing  as she was of twisting his neck in the fragility of a single second - a tick, as she often said. Her eyes burned with defiance, stance fueled by a burst of anger directed at someone who knew no better. He stood his ground, bare feet finding a strength James didn’t know he had to hold him up without faltering under the alien’s crushing aura of threat. “... ‘M sorry. I’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can. It just ain’t looking too bright for ya.”

 

"Is that little brain of yours incapable of fathoming the magnitude of what's going on out there?" She gestured angrily, a ferality coming to life on her pretty face. "How can your pitiful planet sit comfortably in ignorance while whole races are wiped out as we speak?! Planets galore, more worthy than this primitive rock, vanished at the whim of a tyrannical gesture! People are dying, James, and you and your worthless Earth are so blessed with your position you can't even afford to care."

 

Well, that was a nasty card to pull.

 

"Hey, you're being hella unfair." The Texan spat, hands coming to rest on his hips, a dark frown adorning his features. "We didn't exactly subscribe to a Galaxy edition of The Arizona Republic on the mail, y'know? Until you came along, the existence of aliens was a Ridley Scott directed fantasy. We're too bloody small comparing to what's out there, and honestly, thank fucking God we are. We're not ready for something of this extent, we would only send more people to die and fuck up their lives for an ideal of peace."

 

Krolia growled, pacing from one side to the other like a caged animal who lacked the room to stretch her legs. James understood that concept, he did, it was scary to be trapped and helpless in a planet with so many cultural and technical differences, but such had been the hand of fate, and against that, very little could counter.

 

"You selfish, nitwit, undeveloped--"

 

James rolled his eyes, ignoring the foreign words that followed in a verbal string with no end; even if he didn't get the meaning of the crude words, it was more than safe to assume he was being insulted.

 

Mankind adored to play the hero without considering their own weaknesses; given the chance to participate in a romanticized intergalactic war, the world leaders would sell the idea of honor and protection and the guarantee of a victory that would never come. The only thing they'd effectively achieve was one more genocide to what already seemed like an infinite ticking list. So yeah, it was a shame that a wide percentage of the known Universe was being submitted to slavery but he was partially glad for the fact that his race was so "underdeveloped" in the intergalactic standards. Maybe they'd slip under the radar for a while longer.

 

Surely some other planet out there had it worse? Earth couldn't be that far behind. Hoverbikes were a dream since 1967 and later popularized by the Back to the Future film franchise but they just kinda became a real thing, applicable to skateboards, bikes and as of recently, motorcycles.

 

The future was being lived.

 

"We've had wars starting for something as dumb as a flag, what makes you think we're ready to fight for our place among the stars?"

 

"-you don't even deserve the stature of a planet, you're just... animals! The only civilization in a whole solar system, and you just sit there, reproducing the virus that is your general existence--!"

 

_ Fuckin' hell-- _

 

"Stop yelling at ME, woman, it ain't my bloody fault ya can't pilot without crashing!"

 

"I have a mission! I have a duty, I have people under my wing who don't even know they have any hope of being rescued!"

 

"I get it! I do! I just can't do anything abou--... what? What is it?"

 

Krolia's thinned pupils dilated as they focused on James' own, but they seemed to look beyond him; as if she saw something there that clicked a fuse, a dot being connected like a constellation in the night sky.

 

"We... picked up readings. When I crashed. The Lions. We picked up a signal, there must be one nearby!"

 

"That's it.", James shrugged, shaking his head in utter disbelief. Lions? In the desert? "She’s one brick shy of a load. Ye'. That's it, she's lost it."

 

"Do you have any scraps of any sort of metal I can look at?"

 

"Uh. Sure. In... the annex. Just outside."

 

Faster than he could stop her, Krolia bolted out of the house, bare feet on the warm desert ground.

 

Slumping down on the couch, James sighed with exasperation, hiding his face with both of his hands, elbows supported on his knees. What was he getting himself into?


	6. VI.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Krolia can't gadget, then she showers and James can't function.

Well. James  _ had _ a microwave. And an excuse of a television he found on the roadside. A portable radio too, which only worked on a certain angle. But across the progression of weeks, pieces and wires were gradually removed until he was left with nothing but the shells of what the utensils used to be.

 

On the other hand, Krolia had a buzzing gadget, pulsing pausedly like a faulty radar.

 

_ What the fuck. _

 

"'S looking cool. What's it do?" He asked from behind her, leaning his chin on her shoulder to peek at the appliance. Surprisingly enough, the alien didn’t pull back on the contact.

 

She hadn’t, as of recently.

 

"It's a locator,” Krolia explained, “It should take us to one of the Lions." Her voice was even, collected, but there was no denying the hint of excitement hid by the slight curl on her lips.

 

How should he tell her that the most she could find in the canyons would be rattlesnakes, coyotes, prairie dogs or jackrabbits… nothing quite like a  _ lion _ ? It was beyond his understanding but if she came all the way to Earth to find a lion, maybe he should just take her to the zoo.

 

“The Lion is a part of Voltron, James,” she then explained like he was dumb and should have heard all about this in pre-school, “and there are four others. When flying in formation, they combine into a legendary robot warrior, the defender of the Universe. If I could find it perhaps I could… fly it... go back and take what I came here for. Complete my mission.”

 

Maybe he  _ was _ dumb since he wasn’t picking up anything she was saying, but he nodded anyway. It was a game he didn’t know how to play so he should just drift along to the craziness. Whatever really. Lion hunting it is.

 

“M‘Kay. Does this locator thing work, though?”

 

“It should, yes.” She fumbled with the makeshift regulator, frowning at it. It didn’t look like it worked. “Sendak’s team managed to replicate the Red Lion’s signature to locate the others, but it would only work if we were close enough to the planet we were scanning. I don’t have the same equipment, and not nearly the same intelligence as the whole scientific bureau, but this should work within the radius of four or five kilometres.”

 

“ _ Sendak? _ What kinda name’s that? He’s yer purple boyfriend?” James chuckled.

 

Why… wasn’t she replying? Where was the immediate denial, the complete refusal on something as trivial as that comment? He frowned, looking over the counter to see her focused on the gadget rather than his words. Oh no, was he her boyfriend for real?

 

_ … Fuck. _

 

“Kitten?” James’ voice came out as a whine almost, his lip pursing out in a little pout. 

 

“Ugh!” Krolia dismissed him with a gesture, growing disheartened with the locator and throwing it across the room with a grunt. It was reduced to cracks, the parts of the few electronics James owned shattered about. “It doesn’t work!”

 

He sat next to her on the old carpet, pulling his legs up and resting his arms on his knees (it was becoming a habit that they’d both use the couch to lean their backs against rather than sit on it). Krolia’s head was hidden between her knees, and he reached over to wrap his arm around her. For days he saw her struggling with the damn thing and part of her frustration was his as well.

 

“Hey… We’ll find a way, ye’? We’ll get you back up there.” James attempted, noticing yet again how Krolia didn’t make an effort for him to pull his hand back. Well, you wouldn’t find him breaking the contact, for sure. Rearranging himself so that he’d be more comfortable, he allowed the alien to lean against him, the weight of her head rolling to fit between his shoulder and throat.

 

“There must be a way...” She sighed.

 

“Ye’, the Garrison folks.” James’ tone was bitter at the memory of that invasive lieutenant in his fancy grey suit and authoritarian attitude over him that normally would earn him nothing but a punch to the nose and a kick to the baby maker.

 

James did a good job holding that aggression back, he supposed, mentally patting himself in the back.

 

They had announced an open day, scheduled to happen soon, in which they would perform flight displays with the latest models and the most incredibly skilled pilots, promote the message the Garrison carried and recruit possible soldiers to join the cause. Spatial exploration was very romanticized in these events, carrying the ideal of honor. Soldiers die. Families lose sons, parents and cousins to the stars, and are expected to be proud for having their family name in a memorial set on stone. It was ridiculous, but the Memorial Day would cover the long list of astroexplorers who had given their youths to science, discovery and evolution.

 

After scratching their already narrow options, there was only one place where they could obtain a shuttle that could take her away. James explained briefly the purpose and mission of the Galaxy Garrison, which caught her divided attention between the fresh pear she picked from the pile of fruit and nibbled around the skin.

 

Did her ears just twitch a bit? How motherfucking cute.

 

“So I can infiltrate this base and seize one of their shuttles.”

 

“Well, theoretically, you  _ could _ .” The idea should have sounded crazier and less suicidal than it did. Thing is, she probably could pull it off, the tough shrew. “But, in a more practical overview, their grounds are more heavily guarded and protected than the Vatican. That and… each launch costs  _ billions _ to the State. They wouldn’t just happen to have a shuttle ready for take-off at any given time.”

 

At that, she scoffed, arms crossed over her chest. It wasn’t looking too bright, this attempt to cheer Krolia up.

 

“Alright, Kitt--,  _ Krolia _ .” He rectified his words at her unearthly growl, hands raising as a silent apology. “Tell ya what. It’s been a long day; before we can figure out what to do next, why don’t you put on some proper clothing so I can wash that shirt? Come with me.”

 

He got up and gestured invitingly, taking long steps towards the bedroom. It had been a while since he last entered the division, but he delayed the assimilation of the changes made without his authorization to walk towards what he liked to call a make-do wardrobe – read, a pile of clothes in the corner of the bedroom, the not-so-vast variety of shirts and jeans stocked up to be picked out randomly as the passing course of life would demand. Some of them weren’t washed, but James had been rather busy.

 

Krolia wasn’t too reluctant to follow, standing just behind him as he picked out an eighties band tee James thought lost to time. It was a bit ripped at the hem, but yet again, it was as old as dirt, and still had a couple more years of wear in it. He’d have to dig deeper into the pile to find a pair of shorts or pants that wouldn’t just slide down her hips; he couldn’t give away his one and only belt. Did he truly want to cover those amazing legs? Not really. But decency would keep him sober enough to not just jump on her upon sight, because God only knows the things those thighs made him dream about. Any healthy man would feel the same way, he defended himself in thought, if a hot girl insisted on not wearing pants around them.

 

“If you wanna shower before, ‘s fine too, go on ahead. I’ll get you a towel soon.”

 

“Hm.” He heard the nod, though no footsteps followed. Raising his eyebrow at the lack of action, he glanced over his shoulder, only to see that the woman hadn’t, in fact, moved an inch.

 

The dots took a while to connect. “… Ya  _ do _ shower in your planet, don’t ya?”

 

“I have no home planet, I was born and raised as a soldier within the ranks.” Again, the point was naively missed, flown right over her head, and by now James almost expected this every turn.

 

“But you like, shower, right?  _ Bathe? _ Water, soap and what not.”

 

“We… wash…?” The alien suggested, head tilting to the side as if James were the one saying something completely bogus and she was having a hard time following his delusions. They stood, unblinking, for a quite a few seconds, James’ eyes bugging out as he tried to imply the course of action by practically pointing to the door with his gaze.

 

“… Good.” He ended up saying, voice teasing at the edge of a break of temper. “That’s nice, ‘s somethin’. So off you go. Bathroom’s through that door over there, sweetie, I’m sure you’ll find your way.”

 

Finally, Krolia stared at the door. But still didn’t bother to step towards it. In the time she had spent in the self-inflicted confinement of that bedroom, James was sure she had ventured into the bathroom; even if only to mess with whatever he had inside the cupboard, or the piled up towels, or to make sure he wouldn’t be able to go in through that door.

 

“C’mon, woman, bloody hell!” The human exclaimed, ruffling his hair out of frustration as he physically demonstrated what she had to do. “Get in here.”

 

With a questioning, untrusty expression, Krolia entered the bathroom after the man. It was a very small space with tiled walls and floor, cramped with just the two of them, a green ceramic toilet that needed urgent scrubbing and a bathtub/shower combo with a grainy frosted glass. It wasn’t like that when James seized the ownership of the shack, he recalled, it really just needed to be cleaned. Maybe some time soon, now that he had acquired the taste to keep the house tidy for the alien.

 

“You step in there, turn the faucet and just… do your business.”

 

Krolia blinked, amethyst eyes ever inquiring, as she rose her leg - and oh, wow, James saw it, he saw  _ it _ , and felt like a stupid preteen brat, getting all excited like it’s the first cunt he’d ever laid eyes on - and flopped down to sit on the porcelain tub. She squirmed a bit until she settled comfortably, which proved tough with such wide hips, knees pulled up against her chest.

 

Should he leave? Probably, it was only ethical to let a lady bathe by herself.

 

The ground probably shook because James lost his balance, having to lean his whole side against the now closed bathroom door - yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere. Crossing his arms, he brought a fist to his mouth, almost absentmindedly biting at the knuckles to keep himself as grounded as humanly possible.

 

Turns out “humanly” wasn’t an adoptable measure when it came to Krolia.

 

“Take the shirt off.” He reminded her in a whisper, his brain not quite computing the words or making them roll out of his tongue a bit louder and less horny; instead he focused on how tiny the tub seemed for the woman, her built body nestled between the sides. He really should’ve brushed that tub clean before allowing her in, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to get out again.

 

“Oh.” She exhaled, glancing at him over his shoulder before slipping the shirt over her head and holding it up for him to grab before staring to the faucet -  _ glaring _ was more like it, as if she’d make it move by the sheer power of intimidation. She almost managed to inflict fear in an inanimate object, but Kogane stepped in to avoid losing himself any longer in the tense muscles of Krolia’s nude back.

 

Her breasts, too. They were so tiny they were barely more than a darker purple nipple on each side of her chest, only slightly pump. Was it due to her muscle mass? James Daniel Kogane was an ass man, anyway, and his eyes deviated towards his preferred interests.

 

“Will this…  _ faucet _ , activate the fumes?” She questioned.

 

“Err…” The fumes. Why, of  _ course _ them aliens showered with some sort of vapor rather than water. Why hadn’t mankind thought of that yet. “We do it a lil’ differently ‘round these parts of the Universe, Kitten. Let me.”

 

Making sure he wouldn’t brush against Krolia - any physical contact would be instant death for whatever was left of his decency - he reached for the red valve, turning it with an easy wrist movement, and then evened with the blue one; out of habit, James knew it’d take about two minutes before the water actually set at a mild temperature that wouldn’t either freeze his toes or give him a trial of the flooring of Hell. 

 

As soon as the first wave of water reached Krolia’s humanoid feet, a hand of equally sharp nails sunk into the man’s back, her eyes wide open. “ _ FUCK!  _ Holy cow, woman!”

 

Like a darned cat, she hated water. Well, of course she would. 

 

“Just be patient, ye’?” He promised, voice steady and as kind as he could manage, the nails retreating into a simple touch. “It’ll get warmer.”

 

It took its while but soon the temperature of the water reached an acceptable middle ground between warm and refreshing. The tips of her taloned toes relaxed - she even splashed them around tentatively at the sensation - and her whole body followed, sinking into the tub.

 

James should’ve stepped out of the bathroom then; common sense whispered behind his ear that that would be the polite, sensible thing to do, but he was deafened to any sort of logical thinking by the sight before of him. Lack of self-control glued his bare feet to the old plush bathroom rug, as he then slid to sit sideways with the edge of the tub under his arm. He watched her bring some water to her face and then rub at it, nose scrunching cutely.

 

Any good man would’ve gotten up and left. Any good man would, at least, remain still, hold his breath, die in his place rather than daring to upset the goddess in the little peace she found in a warm indoor pool, her eyes closing in the floating comfort, hair soaking and dancing against her back.

 

But James Daniel Kogane was not a good man, and his hand - veiny, calloused - cupped a little water and dropped it over Krolia’s shoulder. His eyes followed the cascating trail over the velvety purple skin, down her back and down her collarbone, wishing he would be one of those lucky droplets, to feel her close and outline the limits of her body until he’d lose himself in the immensity of the water that surrounded her.

 

_ You are not a good man, James. Not even close. _

 

The way her eyes pierced through his in both alarm and warning and then fluttered shut into acceptance and relaxation had him realizing that he had been holding his breath.

 

Ah damn.  _ Maybe he was actually drowning. _

 

“Here.” James offered the first towel he could reach with a short smile, at last deciding to leave Krolia alone to dry up and dress herself. That much she’d manage by herself.

 

As he walked to the living room (breathing,  _ finally _ ), he picked up some gadgets and tools from the floor; Krolia was a delicate young woman for some things, but a total slob for others. He got the laundry going - with her clothes, and a few of his inside a bucket with warm water and some laundry detergent to soak.

 

Wait… Was this... Domesticity?  _ Or some shit.  _ He laughed to himself at the irony, aware that if anyone was looking at him, he’d seem mad.

 

For someone from outer space, Krolia did have a way to make him feel right at home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A huuuuge thank you to my lovely [girlfriend](http://blueyblues.tumblr.com/) and my dudes on Discord for the support and constant validation! It's only thanks to you that I'm posting this, and here's to hoping season 6 won't throw all this down the drain.  
> Updates should come weekly - a loose, yet well-intended promise! Thank you for reading!


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